Delaware and Raritan River Railroad-General Discussion

Not sure if that's a siding, that looks like the mainline they pulled up. That's not a good sign for this project...

Looks to me like the Golds Lumber siding and switch. Will try to check it out tomorrow.

The Freeway Warehouse on the left. Gold's Lumber Yard on Right. Southard Ave Ahead. Main line on left and siding on right.

Gold's Lumber siding at Southard Ave. The Bumper is still there at the end.

Forest, TYVM.

Great info guys keep up the info I've been busy haven't made it out that way in a while.

Wasn't all that long ago (last fall?) they pulled the switch on the other side of Southard Ave. Is NJT pulling them for use elsewhere, perhaps before this line becomes active again? I believe the grant application said something about 2 switches being reused as well as 2 more (used) switches being acquired. I'll need to double check that.

Looks to me like Conrail is taking anything left of re-useable value.

That switch would either have to be rebuilt anyway, or straight railed.

@CR7876 Any guess on what they’d be using it for? This isn’t the first time Conrail has taken switches from some decrepit siding out here to put them somewhere else. Sometimes they even give the switches to NJT for them to use.

Bracdude181 wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 10:46 am @CR7876 Any guess on what they’d be using it for? This isn’t the first time Conrail has taken switches from some decrepit siding out here to put them somewhere else. Sometimes they even give the switches to NJT for them to use.

No. But based on it being around 25 years or older, Its probably just going to be used as spare parts. Frog, guard rails, stock rails, points, ect.

Does not NJTransit own this? I suspect they pulled the switch(es) after perhaps asking conrail.

It was their truck I saw checking out this portion of track a week or so ago. If it were up to conrail, I suspect Freehold-Farmingdale would have been officially abandoned.

It would make sense then if they pulled the rails from the siding; whenever the FIT-SOUS connection is completed, its highly unlikely anything will go on the old Gold's place. That place has been empty for as long as Gold's has been closed (around 15 years now I think), and I've heard the landlord is a real stinker when it comes to his properties and is holding out for some housing developer to build apartments on it.

That spot would make a nice station if MOM ever occurred.

CharlieL wrote: ↑Thu May 12, 2022 11:57 am Does not NJTransit own this? I suspect they pulled the switch(es) after perhaps asking conrail.

It was their truck I saw checking out this portion of track a week or so ago. If it were up to conrail, I suspect Freehold-Farmingdale would have been officially abandoned.

It's probably a good thing it was never formally abandoned. When this line went OOS, a lot of the lighter cars were still in use and Plate F wasn't as common.

Nowadays, cars are heavier and Plate F is common. Existing and potential customers might want heavier and bigger cars, but they can't come down via Red Bank due to NJT restrictions. At least they have another option to get the cars onto the FIT/SOUS when this is reactivated.

@JohnFromJersey the Farmingdale to Freehold section was officially abandoned by Conrail in April 2013. It’s on the STB website.

Edit: Actually, around five years or so after the line was taken out of service were Plate F and 286k cars starting to become the national standard. (1994 ish?)

Only Common Carrier freight rights were abandoned. It's still a "Railroad". Nobody has freight rights on the section from Oakerson Rd to Farmingdale Rd.
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Yeah, that's a big difference. Abandoned would be a whole nother ball game. Still owned by NJT, though, right?